'Let Data Reign': Trump goes all in on controversial data centers
President Donald Trump on Monday stressed his strong support for controversial data centers, a key issue ahead of midterm elections, with the president urging communities to "let Data Reign."
"The only reason that communities throughout the U.S.A. should not want Data Centers is if they want to end up being backwards and poor. If they want to be successful and rich, with far lower taxes and jobs all over the place, let Data Reign," Trump wrote in a social media post on Monday morning.
The president has long emphasized the importance of artificial intelligence advancement, repeatedly expressing his desire for the U.S. to beat China in the global AI race.
"If we kill the Golden Goose, you will only have yourselves to blame. China could not be happier with this anti Data Center movement. Actually, they can’t believe it is happening!" Trump wrote.
Data centers provide the computing power necessary to process large amounts of data, such as the kind needed to run AI systems. They typically house thousands of computer servers and require tremendous amounts of land, water for cooling, and energy, potentially straining local power grids, while employing few workers long-term, relative to their size.
The issue of data centers has been a hot topic ahead of the midterm elections, with AI companies spending millions on congressional races and primaries for and against candidates on the issue of artificial intelligence regulation.
Asked on Monday about Trump's post and how it might land ahead of the midterms, Vice President JD Vance said the president's message was focused on the economics around data centers.
"What the president said about data centers is they're an important part of the AI economy. But when people build them, they have to build the power plants along with the data centers,” Vance said.
Vance acknowledged the backlash surrounding data centers, expressing his belief that the concern stems from higher utility and electricity bills. But he argued that this wouldn't be a problem if companies take advantage of deregulation efforts.
"I think probably 99% of the backlash to data centers has come in areas where building a data center means higher utility and higher electricity for the people on the ground," Vance said. "So I think what these companies have to do is take advantage of some of the federal deregulatory efforts that we've undertaken. If you build a data center, you should be putting power back into the grid, not taking it out. And if that is happening, I don't think the data centers are that controversial," Vance said.
Earlier this month, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the Senate GOP's campaign committee, wrote a memo to AI companies operating in Ohio and warned that backlash to data centers could hurt incumbent Republican Sen. John Husted’s chances at reelection.
Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott also recently paused new data center projects to ensure compliance -- something that Trump had criticized as a "mistake."
"I saw Texas the other day sort of is against data centers. I think it's a mistake. And I’m not taking positions, I just think it’s a mistake, because there are other communities that want it. When a community wants it, it means a lot of money is going to come into that community," Trump had said during a Punchbowl interview earlier this month.
In the Punchbowl interview, the president expressed his belief that data centers are "tremendously important for the economics" and said they could be "bigger than oil."
